How One Pixar Animator Manufactures His Own Toys

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How One Pixar Animator Manufactures His Own Toys

In order to get a satisfactory product from the factory, all the details must be listed clearly.

The CAD data is turned into 3-D parts and are used as masters in the molding process.

The increased complexity of the fox meant multiple molds needed to be created based on the CAD data.

The project started similarly with sketches, but quickly evolved into 3-D models.

Pidgeon followed up his first toy with the "Tr!ckster Fox" -- a mascot for an annual art and culture convention.

From start to finish a project like this takes about a year.

Communicating with factories can be a challenge, so it is imperative to specify everything using a standard like the pantone color matching system.

One of the key benefits of 3-D printing is rapid prototyping. Pidgeon was able to evaluate models at different scales.

Going from 2-D to 3-D can be challenging. Pidgeon started with clay, but eventually modeled the character in 3-D.

The toy started out as a sketch in Jeff Pidgeon's notebook.

The "Happy Beaver" is a vinyl toy designed by Jeff Pidgeon – a story artist at Pixar who worked on the Toy Story series.

Jeff Pidgeon is a toy fanatic. By day he works as a story artist at Pixar, where he helped craft the Toy Story series — he even provided the voice of the little green aliens. In his off hours, he spends time curating one of the world's greatest toy collections.

Telling stories and collecting still wasn't enough for this action-figure enthusiast though, so he decided to design and mass-produce toys of his own creation. His first design, called "Happy Beaver" is going into its second production run and his new product, the "Tr!ckster Fox," is entering the final stages of design. Pidgeon is prepping an online store to sell both and they will also be available at select boutiques.

In between working on Academy Award-winning films and sculpting new toys, Pidgeon talked with Wired Design about his inspirations and the process of bringing a toy from sketch book to store shelves.

Wired Design: What was your motivation for making a toy?

Jeff Pidgeon: I think it's just a natural extrapolation from being such a passionate toy fan in the first place! If you love toys, eventually you'll want to make your own. Whether it's with clay or wood or PVC plastic, it seems to happen. There's a lot of artists out there who customize existing toys into their own creations, or characters they've always wanted to see merchandised. That's another path to the same goal.

WD: How did you develop the happy beaver design?

Pidgeon: Clay. I don't sculpt myself, so I hired Vin Teng, a sculptor I met years ago at San Diego Comic-Con. I really like the way he interprets stylized two-dimensional designs into three dimensions, and he has experience with toy-making. That was important because he could sculpt something I could use with a manufacturer without having to know all the ins and outs of the process.

When I realized that producing my own toy was affordable, I started asking Vin questions and showing him drawings. I gave him a 'turnaround', a type of animation drawing that shows what a character looks like at a variety of angles. Once he had that, he could start sculpting. Since Vin had already done a lot of freelance work, he had a great working method in place - he would show me the figure at various stages of sculpting, I would react to it, then he would make changes. Vin is really good, so there really weren't a lot of changes!

WD: Did your dedication and skill as a collector influence the design from an aesthetically or with regards to manufacturing?

Pidgeon: Definitely - but less concessions to the process, and more influence to my aesthetic - a combination of my design sense and what I think makes a good toy. The more toys you see, the more you know of what's technically possible to do. Sometimes you can learn about manufacturing techniques from other collectors, too.

My "Happy Beaver" toy was an artwork-centric process, in the sense that I had a drawing, and wanted to preserve the look and feel of the drawing as much as possible. Every interaction with anyone else in that process was asked the same question: "How can I make my toy look just like this?" The liason between me and the factory that made the final toy knew more about how to hide and minimize manufacturing artifacts. His job was to get me to that ideal toy version of my drawing with that knowledge, and he did a terrific job. I was very proud that more experienced toymakers were impressed with how well "Happy Beaver" was made.

WD: What was the most challenging part of bringing the Happy Beaver to market?

Pidgeon: In my experience, the time between the first drawings and the finished toy is about a year. I think the most challenging part of production is making choices that you won't be able to change later. I used to really struggle with decisions like that. Fortunately, I trust my own instincts much more than I did when I first started making toys, so heading up projects like this are easier now.

WD:Did you approach the design of the Trickster Fox toy any differently based on your learnings on the Happy Beaver?

Pidgeon: The "Tr!ckster Fox" toy was a somewhat different process. My wife Anita (Coulter) is one of the co-founders of the Tr!ckster event that's been taking place in San Diego over the last couple of years. When the second Tr!ckster was being planned, Anita knew she wanted something similar to the art book for the first event - a primary piece of merchandise. So she suggested I make a fox figure. I had been working with Klim Kozinevich (of Bigshot Toyworks) for a little while on a set of resin figures, but this seemed like the best choice for my next toy, so we shifted our focus onto making the fox.

The "Tr!ckster Fox" process was different because I set out to design a toy, not to make a cartoon character into a toy. I definitely wanted the fox to have personality, but all of the artwork I generated from the start looked a toy of a cartoon fox instead of a cartoon fox. It was different because it was an articulated figure with accessories, instead of a vinyl toy with no joints or extra parts. It was much more complicated.

It was also different because I didn't get the design exactly the way I wanted before I began. Rather than have every choice dictated by the drawing, this time the design evolved over the process of creating it. The Tr!ckster Fox was sculpted digitally, so I got feedback to my notes much more quickly than I had in a traditional sculpting process.

I found that a little bewildering at first - I had just gotten used to a bunch of decisions I'd made, and now all of a sudden I'd have to make all of them all over again. Fortunately, the Bigshot guys were patient with me, and I was motivated to keep things moving because I had a deadline for finishing the project. Gradually, I got used to the new feedback turnover, and the figure turned out really well!

WD: What would you like to do for your next toy project?

Pidgeon: I have a bunch of ideas for future toy releases - that's why I make variants of my current designs, to help buy myself time to make the new characters! The next design on the slate is Kumo-Kun, a kind of anime-luchador-insect-superhero-thing. He was a T-shirt design back in 1998 or 1999, and originally I considered him as my first toy because those shirts sold very well too. But Kumo-Kun was a little more complicated, so I decided to wait. The painted maquette is all set to go - as soon as I can get the cash to make him, I will. I'm considering making a three or four inch resin figure, as opposed to another five-inch vinyl toy, which was my original plan. It'll be cheaper, and if those sell well I can go ahead and make the vinyl figures later. He'll be released in three colors, so I can have a unique version of Kumo-Kun for the next three conventions I attend.

The next project is one I've been developing with Klim before the Tr!ckster Fox toy began. It's a series of jazz musicians that happen to be birds. These will be resin figures, and if you buy all of them, the bases will fit together to form the backdrop of the club where they're performing. There's going to be five or six band members, so I'll probably release a new character periodically rather than make multiple color variants.

I have two more ideas for Happy Beaver toys that I still want to do. I'm looking into making a "Green Beaver" that'll be manufactured out of recycled materials. I also want to figure out my "Shaved Beaver" concept, one that's colored to look like its fur has shaved down to the stubble! I want to put a tiny bandage on each one, too. If I can think of a third idea, I'll do another trio of variants that can be released one by one throughout the year. I'm not sure where they'll fit in the schedule, but they'll be easier to do since I can use the same Beaver molds I already have.

I've also been considering a licensed toy - I did a little homework, and discovered that I could afford to make a limited run of a famous character. I think it's begging for the vinyl treatment, but it may always get back-burnered because I'll probably always want to put one of my own designs first.

WD: How do the toys of today stand up to the Hanna-Barbara ones from the past?

Pidgeon: I can see it from both sides. One the one hand, modern toys have so much more technology at their disposal - both in their manufacturing and their play value. What's possible in a modern toy is truly staggering. I saw an animated Lightning McQueen toy at the store the other day - not only could it talk, but it could make expressions with its eyes and mouth. Sixty years ago, that would have been theme park technology - now you can have it in your kid's playroom. Mattel has a huge line of "Cars" toys - they're so expressive and lovingly detailed, right down to the tiny license plates and bumper stickers. Thinkway Toys started out great and keep getting better and better. Their "Toy Story" toys look like they stepped right out of the screen to come home with you. The sculpting and paint work on modern toys are incredible - there's companies like NECA who are making "Gremlins" and "E.T." action figures that look like movie miniatures! Of course, the laser scanning and direct digital input technologies have really been helpful, and today's sculptors are amazing! Many of them grew up loving the characters they're making into toys, and I think their passion shows in the work.

The figures you can buy from higher-end companies like Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys are comparable to on-camera movie props, too. Some are articulated, some have cloth costumes and illuminated features. I have a Hot Toys Iron Man figure that looks like it came straight from Stan Winston Studios! The audience for collectibles has grown, and so has the amount they're willing to pay. Sideshow makes sixth-scale, quarter-scale, half-scale and full sized figures at a level of detail that kids from the Seventies and Eighties could only dream of. It's just gorgeous stuff!

There's a lot of new ideas coming into toymaking. The mid-Nineties saw the beginning of the "Urban Vinyl" or designer toy movement. Artists in Japan and China began making limited edition toys inspired by 'low-brow' art (like graffiti or cartoons), and the trend's been growing ever since. Now designer toys are made all over the world, and have had a clear effect on mainstream toy design. Some (like NHK television mascot Domo) have made their way untouched into Target; others (like Hasbro's Mighty Muggs) owe a debt to their conceptual forbears, Qee and Dunny figures. Designer toys have given a voice to artists and creators who otherwise might never have gotten involved with toymaking, but now can make their influence felt. People like Brian Flynn (Super 7), Amanda Visell (Switcheroo), Ron English, Kidada, Gary Ham (Superham) James Jarvis (Amos Toys) and many others are creating their own collectible art, as well as making characters for other companies as well. I love this genre of toys, and it's exciting to see it thrive!

Now on the other hand... old toys are also wonderful. Many of them are very clever, perhaps because there were more technical/financial limitations placed upon the creators. Toys of the twenties through to the sixties had the advantage of a pool of artists and craftsmen that doesn't exist in the same way today. Look at an old Fisher-Price toy, and you'll see lovely illustrations on those paper labels, and amazing noisemakers under the hood - all made with simple materials. Imagine what it would be like to figure out how to make a chicken cluck or a frog croak without computer chips! These folks did it, and made them appealing, too.

There's a charming quality to the overspray paint jobs and limited color palettes of older toys that's hard to define. Maybe I'd compare it to movies made in black & white, where the filmmakers embraced the limitations so well that they no longer feel like limitations, even now. Some of an older toy's appeal is definitely nostalgia, but many modern toys - like Super 7's sofubi-inspired vinyl figures - mimic those same paint effects today. I think they still work, whether you're a hard-core toy fan or not. The old Hanna-Barbera toys you mentioned also have a category all their own - early merchandise that's so inaccurate to the character design - or "off-model", as an animator would say - that it creates a charm unto itself. John ("Ren & Stimpy") Kricfalusi introduced me to those toys when I worked on "Mighty Mouse" in the Eighties. There's Dino toys that are orange instead of his traditional purple, or Barney Rubble dolls with green hair, or Huckleberry Hound plushes that are red instead of blue. They look like toys designed by people who have never watched the cartoons, but they're still cute in an odd sort of way.

WD: Have you ever been involved with the toy designs from the Pixar movies?

Pidgeon: We've had meetings at work where a bunch of employees get together and spitball toy concepts (and I've attended a bunch of them), but generally Pixar has a Consumer Products division that works with Disney's Consumer Products division to develop merchandise for Pixar movies. They're a bunch of amazingly talented people, and we've all been happy to have a slew of cool toys as a result! I love the new Funko Pop! Disney vinyl figures - they're stylized re-interpretations of classic Disney and Pixar characters. Ben Butcher (of Pixar CP) has been working on those, and I think he's doing an awesome job. I can't stop buying them!

WD: How does the entrepreneurial community at Pixar impact your process?

Pidgeon: Of course, it's wonderful that the community at Pixar exists - John Lasseter and Ed Catmull have always been very generous about nurturing this in the company. I think the major impact is the inspirational component - that sense of, "Hey, I can do that, too." Toymaking is a specific enough undertaking that I tend to get a little more feedback from other toymakers than co-workers (like Brian Flynn and Frank Kozik, whose advice and support have been invaluable). Still, the Pixar talent pool is staggering, and I do get great advice from it as well. Angus MacLane is an even bigger toy fan than I am, and has an incredible eye for detail - you can see it in his hilarious "Toy Story" short "Small Fry", which is all about fast food toys! He's been very helpful and supportive.